The helicopter bases at BLM Alaska Fire Service facilities on Fort Wainwright and Fort Yukon are buzzing with activity as firefighters, equipment and supplies are shuttled around central and northern Alaska.
BLM AFS will take advantage of the recent lull in fire activity to hit the reset button, demobilizing fires as work wraps up to send home or potentially moving to other wildfires in the Upper Yukon Zone. Some firefighters, including several smokejumpers, will be put back into the line up to respond to fires as Alaska heads into a week of gradual warming.
The most noticeable increase in traffic will occur in Fort Yukon. The station opened Monday for prepositioning resources to get to existing fires or new starts in anticipation of the upcoming hot weather. Temperatures will climb into the 80s in much of Interior Alaska with Fairbanks forecasted to reach 93 degrees on Friday.
Of the 54 active fires in the BLM AFS protection area that covers the northern half of the state, only five fires will remain staffed after moving firefighters around today and responding to one new start. Most are coming back to Fairbanks and added into the pool of people available for fire response just as the season is expected to get spicy again with the incoming warm weather.
Part of that movement was sending sending smokejumpers to a fire 15 miles southwest of Venetie Tuesday night. The Ch`idriinjik Fire (#315) was estimated at less than an acre, but active and burning within a mile of Native allotments and a cabin. It was smoldering, creeping with group torching in black spruce on the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge.
The fire danger is increasing in the northeast again with wind gusts of up to 20 mph, drying out burnable vegetation, that coupled with the incoming heat, are ripe for new starts if there are ignition sources such as lightning or people being careless with fire. The same breezy conditions across the northern Interior will increase fire spread potential for both existing and new fires.
Due to Alaska’s vast, remote wilderness, and with resources on higher priority fires that are burning close to communities, many remain unstaffed as long as they’re not threatening any nearby sites of value. Fire managers are constantly prioritizing the available resources with providing that protection. In populated areas, situations arise where the natural role of fire must be tempered with the need to protect human life, health, such as air quality, private property and infrastructures. Efforts are also made to protect natural and cultural resources from fire, as appropriate.
Instead, BLM AFS personnel are conducting daily flights to check on existing fires and looking for new starts.
That includes keeping an eye on fires burning on military training lands near the Salcha River and Delta Junction. The 25-acre Tractor Fire (#258) wasn’t showing much activity and didn’t appear to grow since BLM AFS personnel flew over the area Monday night. The fire is burning at the southern border of the Yukon Training Area.
The more than 10,000-acre Delta Fire (#221) was backing into the wind, burning through tundra and black spruce on the Donnelly Training Area west of the braided Delta Creek Tuesday night.
The nine-person Cascade Wildland Fire Module out of Boise National Forest spent its first day on the 150-acre Lower Birch Fire (#291) burning about 13 miles east of Beaver.
The 10-person all-women’s Student Conservation Association crew out of the Alaska National Parks is still protecting a historic mining camp from the Ikheenjik Fire (#234). This 95-acre fire is burning on BLM-managed lands about 2 miles south of mile 94 Steese Highway east of the Ikheenjik River, formerly known as the Birch Creek Wild and Scenic River. They anticipate having this work completed later this week and will move to another fire closer to Venetie.
Firefighters are demobilizing Wednesday from the two remaining staffed fires in the Tanana Fire Management Zone – the BLM Type 2 Contract Mooseheart Crew from the 5-acre Vigor Fire (#298) near the Tolovana Hot Springs and the BLM AFS North Star Crew from the 5-acre Brooks Fire (#284) near Livengood.
Four smokejumpers finished putting up protective measures today such as cutting a saw line and setting up sprinkler systems around a cabin today to protect it from the 672-acre Crooked Fire (#262) burning about 15 miles north of Chena Hot Springs.
Contact BLM Alaska Fire Service Public Affairs Specialist Beth Ipsen at 907-356-5510 or eipsen@blm.gov for more information.
Categories: AK Fire Info
Alaska Wildland Fire Information 